Dennis Monokroussos writes:
Sometimes the success story takes place before our very eyes, but usually something
else happens. Maybe the game is settled by a blunder, ends in a draw, or –
worse still – we lose. Alternatively, the result is satisfactory but the
path is a wild one. First one side has the advantage, then the other side fights
back, and at the end of the slugfest an unpredictable conclusion appears. When
that happens, then although we may not have the deep satisfaction of winning
a model game, the resulting feeling might be even better: the feeling of having
experienced and survived an adventure.
It's just such a game we'll look at in our ChessBase show this week, played
in the FIDE World Championship in San Luis 2005. Peter Svidler had White against
then-champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, and the game took an incredible course. Kasimdzhanov
introduced a novelty, but Svidler reacted well and obtained an edge. The position
was incredibly sharp though, and when he erred Kasimdzhanov found a brilliant
resource that gave him a big advantage. Then he too erred... but these are the
sorts of errors that are far easier to spot in analysis than over the board.
Besides, without the errors along the way, we would have been deprived of a
truly amazing conclusion.
What happened? Join us and see! The show is free, after all – just log
on to the Playchess.com server at 9 p.m. ET tonight (Wednesday night; that's
3 a.m. CET Thursday morning), go to the Broadcast room and select Svidler-Kasimdzhanov
in the Games list. Hope to see you there!
Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST, which translates to 02:00h
GMT, 03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Thursday). Other time zones
can be found at the bottom of this page. You can use Fritz or any Fritz-compatible
program (Shredder, Junior, Tiger, Hiarcs) to follow the lectures, or download
a free trial client. |
You can find the exact times for different locations in the world at World
Time and Date. Exact times for most larger cities are here.
And you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos offline in
the Chess Media System room of Playchess:
Enter the above archive room and click on "Games" to see the lectures.
The lectures, which can go for an hour or more, will cost you between one and
two ducats.
That is the equivalent of 10-20 Euro cents (14-28 US cents).

Monokroussos in Mexico: World Championship 2007
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Dennis Monokroussos is 41, lives in South Bend, IN, where
he teaches chess and occasionally works as an adjunct professor of philosophy
at the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University-South Bend.
At one time he was one of the strongest juniors in the U.S. and has reached
a peak rating of 2434 USCF, but several long breaks from tournament play have
made him rusty. He is now resuming tournament chess in earnest, hoping to reach
new heights.
Dennis has been working as a chess teacher for ten years now, giving lessons
to adults and kids both in person and on the internet, worked for a number of
years for New York’s Chess In The Schools program, where he was one of
the coaches of the 1997-8 US K-8 championship team from the Bronx, and was very
active in working with many of CITS’s most talented juniors.
When Dennis Monokroussos presents a game, there are usually two main areas
of focus: the opening-to-middlegame transition and the key moments of the middlegame
(or endgame, when applicable). With respect to the latter, he attempts to present
some serious analysis culled from his best sources (both text and database),
which he has checked with his own efforts and then double-checked with his chess
software.